Happy Lunar New Year!
"You know what, you suck at drawing facial composites." Wang Meng said while holding the drawing of the suspect.
His colleague was the person who had been sent here to draw a facial composite based on Li Fan's description. He also happened to be the only person at the Li‘he rural police post who had spent some of his free time picking up this skill.
Hearing this, Wang Meng's colleague shrugged his shoulders, "Hey, don't blame me, the kid's the one that sucks at describing the perp. All he says is that he's so mean and super mean looking, what am I supposed to draw?"
The two of them spoke as they returned to the car. At this moment, another two cars drove into Huazhuang with six people getting out of the cars. Wang Meng and his colleague immediately stood straight. Even though they were in casual clothes and weren't driving police cars, Wang Meng and his colleague could still recognize that the people who'd just arrived were members of the criminal task force. The person at the head of the group looked around and then entered the village chief's home, beckoning at Wang and his colleague to follow. Evidently there were some things that couldn't be discussed by the roadside; but no matter how quietly they whispered in the yard, none of it could escape Huang Ji.
Huang Ji watched the house from a distance, standing on top of a small hill over six hundred meters away from the village chief's house. Because the chief had turned on the lights, Huang Ji had a clear view of the upper body of the cops. Nobody could have heard anything from this distance, but Huang Ji was an exception. If he saw it, then he heard it; his sight was equivalent to his hearing.
"This letter shows that the perpetrators are still at Huazhuang! Is there any place around here that no one visits, or maybe a secretive place that could be used for hiding?" asked the middle-aged cop at the head.
"You guys are locals, you must be more familiar with this place." a young man with a crew cut added.
"Sir, there's no one in our village named Lu Zongmin." Wang Meng said.
Sergeant Chen said gravely, "Of course not! The person called Lu Zongmin is an internet security specialist from Jumei, a company located in the capital.
"Know about Tuanmei? They sell beauty products, he's one of the security officers for the website." the young man with a crew cut added in again.
Wang Meng scratched his head, "Could they just have the same name? Why would an employee from a big company in the capital run all the way out here for a kidnapping?"
Sergeant Chen shook his head, "It's the same person. Two days ago he took a plane to Zhengzhou, and yesterday be checked into a hotel in Xuzhou. This is all on record. There's no mistaking it, it's him. The crime force in Xuzhou checked the hotel surveillance, he left the hotel at three in the morning before dawn and still hasn't returned. Based on the time, it's entirely possible for him to have arrived here at 7:00 a.m. and conduct the kidnapping."
The young man with a crew cut added in once again, "More importantly, we found Liang Yuan's picture in Lu Zongmin's hotel room."
Wang Meng was surprised, Liang Yuan's photo? These two people shouldn't have known each other, it must have been him. But it was too strange, coming all the way from the capital to a village in Xinzheng to kidnap a doctor, Lu Zongmin must have had an ulterior motive. Huang Ji already knew what this ulterior motive was.
"All for money..." Huang Ji muttered on the hill. There was probably no one in Huazhuang who knew Dr. Liang better than him.
Dr. Liang was a graduate from a top university in the capital, her coming to work here in this remote village was in itself a strange occurrence. Every since waking up last week, Huang Ji had observed Dr. Liang's information numerous times. He already knew that Dr. Liang was hiding here to avoid being found by a group of people.
Dragged in by her parents, she was once a member of an antiquities trafficking group. To be more accurate, it was her foster parents. Huang Ji knew very well that she was an orphan, this was an extremely simple piece of information. Her foster parents had taken her in, sent her to school, and had treated her very well. She had thought that she would just go on to be a doctor. She never dreamt that her parents would pick up their old trade again when she was in university and even drag her down with them.
At first they only had her take care of some injuries, but then they had her preparing anesthetics; and upon seeing how obedient she was, they promptly started taking her on trafficking trips. Liang Yuan's dream was to become a doctor, not trafficking antiquities, but she was already too deep in the hole and suffering as a result. When she resisted, her foster parents had decided too stop after one last gig.
This last gig turned out to be a double cross. The couple had stolen and run away with four million yuan and a Tang dynasty golden Buddha sculpture that had belonged to the entire group. Liang Yuan had also participated in this plan. She had used anesthesia to knock out the group and then called the cops after leaving.
Nobody used their real identities in the group, only a certain people who were related to each other such as brothers and couples knew each others' real identities. In other words, the entire group was made up of a number of small families. A lot of members had been dragged in by their own family. Under such circumstances, when the group had been apprehended by the cops who had rushed over, they were only able to give a description of the people who had gotten away, they couldn't even pull out a single photo. Unfortunately, three people had gotten away in the end, they were Wang Zhen, Hu Feng, and Lu Zongmin.
Wang Zhen and Hu Feng were extremely fit, they had woken up earlier and gotten away without encountering the cops. Lu Zongmin on the other hand hadn't even been there. He was one of the masterminds.
Knowing that there were three people who had gotten away, the couple took the money and hid in this rural area. They wanted to wait for everything to die down and then leave the country. Liang Yuan had also been forced by the couple to stay with them. Thus, her only choice was to be a tiny doctor in this remote village; but she was content nonetheless, her dream was to be a doctor. Just like this, half-a-year had passed by.
Despite having already learned about Liang Yuan's past a few days ago, Huang Ji had been feigning ignorance and hadn't exposed her. This was because Dr. Liang had truly treated him well and was indeed a good person at heart. Of course, it was no longer the time to be keeping secrets now. Liang Yuan had already been kidnapped, and by the remaining members of the trafficking group no less.
......
Wang Meng stroked his chin saying, "If you're talking about a place to hide, there are a couple of rundown bungalows on the mountain where the cemetery is, they've been abandoned for years now. Uncle, those bungalows are still around right?"
The village chief nodded his head, "Yup. There was an old fortune teller who used to live there, but after he died no one's live there for years."
Hearing this, Huang Ji turned his head toward the mountain where could see the tip of the house in the distance. Reading the data of the house, he sensed that there were four people inside. "They really are there..." Huang Ji smiled. Like this, there was probably no need for him anymore.
Sergeant Chen quickly pulled out a map and had the village chief mark down the location while asking, "Anywhere else?"
The village chief then marked down a few other locations including; empty houses, old bunkers, and even an old abandoned well. This made Sergeant Chen remark about the importance of locals and their familiarity with the area. They quickly started investigating each of the locations the village chief had marked down and would probably soon reach the bungalow at the cemetery. As for Huang Ji, he had already left earlier and arrived near the scene, silently watching from a concealed location. He couldn't go back without personally seeing Dr. Liang reach safety.
It was worth mentioning that he had found a lot of small warning traps setup around the old house. They were very well concealed, Huang Ji was the only one who could have found them so easily. Traps were completely meaningless to him, even the most well concealed trap would have its data clearly tell Huang Ji; I'm a trap... Given the fact that it was the middle of the night, the cops might alert the kidnapper's if they weren't careful.
"Good thing I got here first." Huang Ji smiled, lightly moving forward and carefully taking apart the traps. The traps themselves were not dangerous, but once triggered, a small loudspeaker would blare loudly. He had already seen through the mechanism, allowing him to easily take them apart without making a sound. After helping the cops clear the path, Huang Ji laid low in a place twenty meters away from the old house.
The inside of the house was dark, but the people inside were using their phones to illuminate the place. With the light from the cellphone screens, Huang Ji was faintly able to see the silhouettes of the people; it was indeed Wang Zhen, Hu Feng, and Lu Zongmin. With direct sight, Huang Ji had access to virtually all of their information, including their memories. Of course, there was way too much information and his perception speed was still not very fast; or maybe it should be said that he was unable to package and compress the information.
Huang Ji had once tried to read half-a-minute of a person's memory in one shot. This meant compressing and then reading a half-a-minute section of memory in one second. The result was a splitting migraine followed by losing conscious. With this, he realized that he was unable to endure the strain of instantly reading a large amount of data. The human brain simply could not handle so much, fainting was a result of the brain's self-defense mechanism being triggered. With his current mental processing abilities, if he wanted to read all the memories of a twenty year old person, he would have to stay in contact with them uninterrupted for twenty whole years. Obviously this was impossible, Huang Ji also didn't have that kind of time or patience.
Generally speaking, it was fine to search with a specific goal in mind. For example, if he wanted to know the memory where the person had felt the most scared, Huang Ji could find the person's most terrifying experience. By the same logic, he could also find their saddest experience, their most favourite item, the person they loved, and their most treasured memory; or, if Huang Ji knew about an event, he could find out if they had been a part of it. A myriad of options allowed him to become very familiar with a person. Without needing to observe them for too long, simply scanning through their life experiences was already sufficiently useful for most people. You could say that Huang Ji's ability allowed him to read anybody like a book.
"This is all for that Buddha sculpture, not the money? And Wang Zhen and Hu Feng are both wanted..." Huang Ji was a bit speechless. Wang Zhen and Hu Feng were wanted by the police. Even though they'd gotten away, they'd spent the entire time living in fear in Xuzhou, changing their names and identities. The only person doing well was Lu Zongmin. The cops hadn't even known about his existence when they'd cracked the case; but for some reason, Lu Zongmin chose to personally get his hands dirty this time for that Buddha sculpture.
All things considered, Lu Zongmin's kidnapping was quite thorough. They had worn masks, changed hairstyles, and hired a thief called Lin Yong to steal a van. Afterwards, they had used this van to kidnap Liang Yuan. He then had Lin Yong drive off by himself while he and his two buddies dragged Liang Yuan off the van and hid here. If it weren't for Huang Ji's data perception, the cops probably wouldn't have even established a case yet; and even if they had, they'd still be looking for that van. Even taking a thousand steps back and pretending that the cops were competent, after apprehending the driver--Lin Yong--it would still be nearly impossible for them to link him with Lu Zongmin. Lu Zongmin would have already accomplished his goal and gone home. But never in his wildest dreams could Lu Zongmin have guessed that a person had directly obtained his name from his footprints. Furthermore, that person had even written a ransom letter to the cops in his place and signed it with his true name...
"Cough cough cough..." Liang Yuan was tied up in the house, a cloth covering her face as Wang Meng continuously poured a jug of water over her. After the jug was emptied, Lu Zongmin removed the cloth. Liang Yuan gasped for air, constantly coughing after having swallowed large amounts of water.
"Still not ready to speak? Lil' Liang, the cops already know you're missing, I'm running out of patience..." Lu Zongmin said coldly.
Liang Yuan had completely broken down, "I don't know anything, I swear! I never touched the money...and I know even less about the sculpture..."
Lu Zongmin stared at her in disappointment, killing intent rising in his heart. Seeing this, Huang Ji almost couldn't resist jumping out. He could clearly sense Lu Zongmin's killing intent. At the same time, he was also certain that Liang Yuan really didn't know anything!
The money and Buddha sculpture were all with her foster parents. It was a big mistake on Lu Zongmin's part to hastily kidnap Liang Yuan after finding her. The reason he'd kidnapped her was because Lu Zongmin had thought that Liang Yuan would also know where the sculpture was located. To make matters worse, she was alone in this remote village, making her an easier target to kidnap; but to his disappointment, he still hadn't obtained any information after an entire day of interrogation.
Reading the data, Huang Ji knew that Lu Zongmin had been interrogating Liang Yuan for nearly ten whole hours. He had cut up Liang Yuan's face, and her hands and feet had also been burnt black; water torture, whipping, he'd used every trick in the book, even chopping off one of her fingers. Despite all this, she simply didn't have the information he needed. He wanted the golden Buddha, it wasn't like she could just make it appear out of thin air for him. Poor Liang Yuan didn't even know that her foster parents had already abandoned her, running away immediately upon hearing about her kidnapping...
Huang Ji clenched his fists and gauged his tiny frame. Maybe he could deal with Lu Zongmin, but he was no match for Wang Zhen and Hu Feng, the two of them were extremely well-built. "Why are the cops so slow..." He was just a regular person, other than...being able to see data. At this moment in time, all he could do was repeatedly read through their data and think of a plan.
......
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